Energy from rotten meat criticised

Vegetarian and animal rights charity Viva! has attacked the UK's leading supermarket after it said it burnt waste meat for energy.

Tesco, which this week claimed to have diverted 100% of its waste from landfills, is throwing 5000 tonnes of unsold meat into incinerators each year.

The supermarket said this generated about 2500 mega watt hours of renewable electricity - enough to power more than 600 homes for a year.

Viva! campaigns manager, Justin Kerswell, said: "It's a sad indictment of modern life that not only hundreds of millions of animals are killed each year in the UK, but so much meat is left over from greed and indifference.

"To turn this wasted meat into power might seem like a good idea at first, but you have to ask yourself why is so much left over and why are so many animals dying to provide this excess?

"Whatever savings are made by turning this meat into energy is more than voided by the huge amount of greenhouses gases generated by the farming and production of the meat in the first place. Tesco should take a long hard look at their wasteful practices."